From a modding point of view, Shadows are largely hard coded. Their skill levels are determined by a combination of their level and your skill level with that skill (search PhrozenKeep for details, but I think it's 1/3 their level +1/2 your level in that skill).
The skills used by ShadowMaster are controlled by some columns near the right-hand edge of skills.txt. I never bothered with them much in v1.7, so I can't tell you the complete details (search PhrozenKeep if you'd like to know more, or know from a more official source). I believe the AIType column tells the shadow if that skill is appropriate for ranged attack, melee, self-buff, etc.
The ShadowWarrior is only allowed to use the skills you have on your right and left mouse buttons. When you summon her, if she's not in melee range but there are monsters on screen, then there's a very high chance that she'll immediately use your right-click skill, and then if you switch that skill then she might use the next skill (so after summoning you can get her to buff herself about 1-3 times). Once she's engaged the enemy though, or no enemies are on the screen, then her AI seems to lose this useful feature.
From a modding point of view, the +%HP/Lvl and InventoryItemLevel of the shadows can be changed, but they appear to ignore the columns normally used to buff summons (aurastates and passivestates). Even the Vanilla v1.10 skill files buffed Shadow strength and Dex with those columns, but when I tried to test the effects (more damage when they attack), I never noticed a difference.
The best way I've found to change Shadows is to edit their inventory. HU v1.3 didn't do much with that feature, so hopefully that was noticed and changed in more recent versions. In v1.7, Shadow gear is generally Rares in quality, and armors are from the Heavy (SWarrior) and Medium (SMaster) AC tiers. Around skill level 30, I gave the SWarrior a unique mask that has 10%onStruck Lvl20Fade.
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